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What’s happening in the Fort Lauderdale area condo market?
After the first quarter of 2013 is in the bag, the available inventory of condo/townhouse properties in the Fort Lauderdale area continues to drop. The next few charts outline the inventory, price and types of transactions in Broward County, Florida:
Buyers have fewer and fewer properties to chose from. We are in a unique market now where banks are just now starting to foreclose on delinquent borrowers. Meanwhile, thousands of properties sit in limbo. Even as of our last data run in February, there were over 12,000 condo/townhouse properties in some stage of foreclosure, and this is what the breakdown by city looked like:
Until these properties get processed through the courts or are sold via short sale or REO transactions, buyers will be facing a tight supply in the market. Here is a look at the average selling price in Broward County through March 2013.
As the supply keeps dropping, the average selling price of a condo/townhouse has made the slow grind higher. The only positive for buyers is that more borrowers that are underwater will consider selling their properties and getting out from under the suffocating mortgage debt that has trapped them for the past several years.
Next, let’s look at the breakdown of sales by transaction type:
Lately it appears that short sales and foreclosure/REO transactions have remained a small component of the overall sales picture. A short-term uptick in prices makes sense when you look at the temporary absence of short sales and REO transactions. In March 2013, the breakdown for the 1,499 condo/townhouse sales in Broward County was as follows:
- 1,036 traditional sales representing 69.1% of all closed sales
- 237 foreclosure/REO sales representing 15.8% of all closed sales
- 226 short sale transactions representing 15.1% of all closed sales
Over the next year or two we will continue to see a steady dose of distressed properties. We should have new data on March foreclosure filings soon, but for now, here is a glance at the new foreclosure filings in Broward County for the condo/townhouse segment of the market. These filings will most likely move higher for the balance of 2013 and into 2014.